UPDATE 1-Syrians need food aid as crisis wrecks harvest

August 02, 2012|Reuters

GENEVA/ROME, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Up to 3 million Syrians arelikely to need food, crop and livestock aid in the next 12months as the conflict raging in their country has preventedfarmers harvesting crops, U.N. agencies said on Thursday.

The World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and AgricultureOrganisation (FAO) said about 1.5 million people need urgent andimmediate food aid and close to a million require crop andlivestock assistance. One in three rural residents would needhelp, they said.

"If timely assistance is not provided, the livelihood systemof these vulnerable people could simply collapse in a fewmonths' time," Abdulla BinYehia, FAO representative in Syria,said in a statement.

Citing a joint assessment by the United Nations and theSyrian government, the agencies said the agricultural sector hadlost $1.8 billion this year, with wheat and barley badly hit.

The assessment, conducted in June and compiled in July, saidwheat harvesting had been delayed in Deraa, rural Damascus, Homsand Hama provinces because of a lack of labour and a reluctanceto rent out farm machinery due to the conflict.

"There is thus a great risk of losing part of the crop ifthere is further delay," the report said.

In the month since the assessment was done, violence hasworsened and spread to Damascus and Aleppo, Syria's two largestcities, where fighting continued on Thursday.

About 80 percent of the 11 million Syrians who live in thecountryside rely on farming for their income.

In 2010, before the 17-month-old revolt against PresidentBashar al-Assad erupted, more than 3 million hectares - the bulkof the cultivated land - was sown with wheat and barley.

The report cited senior officials in Syria's Directorate ofAgriculture as saying Al Hassake governorate, which had 1.1million hectares of wheat and barley in 2010, feared this year'scrop could be cut by 30 percent.

On Wednesday, WFP said it was sending immediate food aid to28,000 people in Syria's biggest city, Aleppo, convulsed by morethan a week of fighting between troops and rebels.

The agency says it faces a $62 million funding shortfall onan overall budget of $103 million for its Syrian operation.